Business schools face especially deep challenges when different rankings have different weights. It becomes harder to win arguments about what excellence looks like. A great example of that is EDHEC. For some time, the school has recruited a slightly older cohort and has used scholarships to attracted students with higher GMAT scores. As a result, students come in who are slightly more senior. In turn that means that
- more senior students go into better roles
- because they were higher up to start with, they move forward less slowly in progression and in salary percentage increase. More junior people simply have more room to move ahead in.

So, the results are that EDHEC has risen in The Economist and QS rankings (both rank it in the top 35 worldwide and top 15 in Europe) while it has just fallen out of the FT top 100. I think this is mostly because of the lower speed of career and salary growth for more senior students.

I think that means applicants need to take more careful appreciation of ranking methods, and ensure that schools fit their their individual goals rather than simply imagine there is one world labour market and all schools are simply plotted along one variable.

That's good insight, Duncan. That's probably also true for Essec, which tends to also recruit older students whose post-MBA salary growth doesn't have the same *bang* as a school like HEC, which recruits younger students.

You can really tell that the FT's ranking values salary increase, almost above all else, look at CEIBS for instance.